This invention relates to an automatic performance device used in an electronic musical instrument or the like instrument and, more particularly, to an automatic performance device carrying out an automatic performance according to a desired automatic performance pattern such as an automatic rhythm performance and an automatic bass/chord accompaniment performance. More particulary, the invention relates to a technique for automatically selecting a transitional automatic performance pattern such as fill-in, introduction or ending pattern.
In a conventional automatic rhythm performance used in an electronic musical instrument, plural rhythm patterns are normally provided for a common rhythm name and a desired one of these rhythm patterns is selected. For example, a normal pattern and a variation pattern are provided for the rhythm name of bosanova and one of these patterns can be selected. The variation pattern is not limited to a single type but there is also a device in which plural variation patterns are provided. Each of these patterns generally has a length of several bars and a continuous automatic rhythm performance is carried out by repeating such pattern.
Since the same pattern is repeated as a main performance pattern as described above, the automatic performance tends to become monotonous. For avoiding such monotonousness, in a prior art automatic performance device (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,183), a sub-pattern called "fill-in" or "break" or "ad lib" is provided and this sub-pattern is temporarily inserted in response to designation made by manual switch operation to be followed by performance of a main pattern. In this case, a main pattern which should follow the temporarily inserted sub-pattern such as fill-in, i.e., a main pattern to be shifted is designated, and the type of the sub-pattern is solely determined in accordance with the type of the designated main pattern to be shifted.
In a case where, for example, there are two types of main performance pattern, i.e., the normal pattern and the variation pattern, two types of fill-in designation switches are provided, i.e., for "fill-in-to-normal" (i.e., a designation of shifting to the normal pattern after performance of fill-in) and "fill-in-to-variation" (i.e., a designation of shifting to the variation pattern) and two types of fill-in patterns are correspondingly provided. When, therefore, the "fill-in-to-normal" designation has been made, the fill-in automatic performance according to the fill-in pattern exclusive for "fill-in-to-normal" is made regardless of whether the pattern which has been performed immediately before is the normal pattern or the variation pattern. Likewise, when the "fill-in-to-variation" designation has been made, the fill-in automatic performance according to the fill-in pattern exclusive for "fill-in-to-variation" is made regardless of the type of the main pattern which has been performed immediately before.
In the prior art automatic performance device, an introduction performance pattern and an ending performance pattern are provided in addition to the main performance patterns for the purpose of introducing vividness of a live performance in the automatic performance. The introduction performance pattern is inserted at the beginning of the automatic performance and the ending performance pattern is inserted at the end of the automatic performance. In this case, a performance according to a predetermined introduction pattern is simply inserted by an introduction designation operation and a performance according to a predetermined ending pattern is inserted by an ending designation operation.
Since the sub-pattern such as fill-in used in the prior art automatic performance device is determined solely in accordance with the type of the main pattern to which the pattern should be shifted after insertion of the sub-pattern, there arise problems that transition from the main pattern which has been performed immediately before tends to become unnatural and the fill-in performance itself tends to become monotonous. For example, in the case of the fill-in to be followed by the normal pattern, the same fill-in pattern is used regardless of whether the main pattern immediately before is the normal pattern or the variation pattern and, therefore, the same fill-in performance is carried out both in a case where the pattern returns from the normal pattern to the normal pattern after insertion of the fill-in and in a case where the pattern is shifted from the normal pattern to the variation pattern after insertion of the fill-in, with the result that the automatic performance is accompanied by monotonousness.
Further, in the prior art automatic performance device, a predetermined introduction pattern is solely determined by an introduction designation operation as described above and this causes monotonousness in the introduction performance. Likewise, a predetermined ending pattern is solely determined by an ending designation operation and this causes monotonousness also in the ending performance.
There may sometimes arise a case where, during a transitional performance such as fill-in, an operation for designating another transitional performance such as fill-in is made. In the prior art automatic performance device, however, no specific arrangement is made to cope with such case and therefore such case cannot be handled properly without causing inconvenience.
The above described problems take place not only in the automatic rhythm performance but also in the automatic bass/chord accompaniment performance and other automatic performances.